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UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Thursday, October 26, 1967
Washington peace march
By Ruth Rohrer
(Editor's note: Ruth Rohrer, journalism senior, was in Washington, D.C., last weekend and observed the march on the Pentagon.)
It was a beautiful setting.
The Washington Monument rose high behind them as 50,000 persons gathered about the reflecting pool in front of the Lincoln Memorial.
The weather was perfect—a cloudless, crisp autumn day just right for a family outing.
And the objective of this mass get-together, too, was beautiful. Peace. Is there anyone who doesn't want peace, who couldn't be just a little bit proud of this diverse group of persons who had come so far to express their desire for a peace in which men don't have to die and bombs don't have to fall?
The group might have represented a cross-section of America. There were Protestants, Jews and Catholics, traditional civil rights workers, lawyers, entertainers, college and high school students, Peace Corps alumni, mothers, grandparents and small children, and the flower people.
The attitude was orderly—a mood of decency and human respect—as they listened to Dr. Benjamin Spock; Lincoln Lynch, associate national director of the Congress of Racial Equality; Mrs. Dagmar Wilson, head of Women Strike for Peace; Charles 37X, head of the American Mau Mau; British labor leader Clive Jenkins and black nationalist poet Gaston Neal.
"We will go to the Pentagon and we will face the truth. We will turn it into a teach-in for the truth," said David Dellinger, chairman of the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam which sponsored the demonstration.
Although Dellinger calls himself a "non- Soviet type Communist," his words sounded good and the people agreed with him.
And they were on their way. Crossing the Arlington Memorial Bridge which had been blocked off for the pavade, it could have been a Halloween outing. Carrying little tin noisemakers and baby rattlers and wearing beads, flowers, bells and military uniforms dating from World War II to the Civil War, the flower children became the vanguard of the group.
The group seemed good-humored. They talked of love and peace and truth.
It would have seemed like a fun-type affair if one didn't know that operations at the Pentagon, where 27,000 people work, were virtually
closed down for the day, if one didn't know that troops surrounded the building, and if one didn't see the signs saying "Where are you, Osweld, now that we need you?" or recognize the Viet Cong flags being carried.
But the concern for truth and the beautiful objectives were soon forgotten. As the group approached the Pentagon, the mood changed. It wasn't long before all order and decency were gone.
The anti-war movement suffered a severe setback by the remaining activities. The original purpose of the march was lost in the ensuing battle with troops, and the peace march became a war which lasted into the night.
Twenty-seven persons were injured by late afternoon; one newsman was clubbed to the ground by demonstrators when he tried to get inside the Pentagon to the press room; troops were taunted, spat upon; tear gas was used (by both sides, they said); obscenities were yelled and written upon walls and sidewalks; vegetables, water bottles, and rocks were thrown at the troops and at the massive building housing the nation's defense nerve center.
Windows were broken and, as darkness approached, parking stakes were torn up to build bonfires. At one point, a large group of flower children simultaneously relieved their biological urges in a symbolic gesture on the Pentagon lawn.
It became an endurance test between the troops and the demonstrators. All thoughts of peace must surely have been gone long before.
My sympathy was with the troops, who exhibited an incredible amount of patience throughout the afternoon and evening, with those participants who had sincerely believed that the event was to be an effort for peace and with American citizens who heard some of the most beautiful words and concepts in the English language used to justify the ugliness of the day.
I remembered the question of one mother who marched in the demonstration. "How can you explain a war—any war—to little kids?" she asked.
The child beside her was too young to read the sign she carried.
And I wondered how she would explain the "peace" march to her child.
And I hope that if she finds a way, she'll tell me, too.
I find I need an explanation of peace as badly as I need one of war.
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Letters to the editor
Arab letter, 'peace people' editorial repudiated
To the Editor:
In 1953-64 we visited every part of Israel, even hiking to many Arab villages deep in the hinterland, and nowhere in city or village did we see the persecution of the Arabic population mentioned in the propagandistic letter. Furthermore we did not consider that we had been in any way brainwashed. The Arab populations of Haifa, Acco, Nazareth and elsewhere appeared quite content to be sharing in the relatively high standard of living and education in Israel.
Having lived in Israel for ten months in 1933-64 as a Fulbright scholar and lecturer at the Technion, Haifa. I feel that I must protest the letter of Oct.24,1937, which appeared in the Kansan. In my opinion it presented a very distorted view of the condition of the Arabs now living in the state of Israel.
It is my opinion that letters with a serious credibility gap, such as the one of Oct. 24, do a serious disservice to the Arab cause with the American public.
JAMES L. SEVER
Professor of History and
Fulbright Lecturer in Israel,
1963-64
James E. Seaver
To the Editor:
Your editorial "the 'peace people'" emphasizes the sad communications barrier between those who consider war a necessary evil, and those of us who find it unjustifiable under any circumstances. I cannot, of course, speak for everyone who opposes the war in Vietnam; but I can explain why I, myself, and some of my friends, want to see the U.S. withdraw its troops. I hope to clear up some of the misconceptions that appear in your article, and to answer the charge that those who protest the war are hypocrites.
To quote from the Declaration of Independence: "We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." If all men are created equal, and if the right of life is inalienable, then it is unjust for one man to decide that another must die, no matter what threat exists. Such a decision, as when men decide to go to war, places the life of one man above that of another, denying their equality; and deprives some of the one right without
The fact that our adversaries in Vietnam are engaged in an attempt to deprive the people of the South of their rights does not nullify the application of the principles above. I do not attempt to justify the action of the Viet Cong, nor do I question the sincerity of the American leaders who seek freedom for the people of Asia. But I must condemn equally both sides for engaging in the immoral act of murder. I deny the validity of the argument that it is acceptable to violate the primary right of some men in order to protect the secondary rights of others.
which all others are meaningless, the right to live. Even though a man may intend to kill another, or may do so, his right to live cannot be rescinded.
This is not to say that I think the communists will stop their effort to take over Vietnam if American troops are pulled out. Communism is not going to vish the minute other forces cease to confront it with arms. But we of the affluent West are responsible for much of the appeal that communism has in the underdeveloped world, just as we are responsible for allowing life to become so degrading in Germany
Had we worked as conscientiously for the downfall of Bastiusa as we do now for that of Castro, Cuba might today be free. In 1967, oppressive governments exist in Spain, Portugal, Greece, Southern Africa, and in many parts of South America, but the U.S. does not seem to mind. Unfortunately, our policy has become, in practice, to ignore the appalling conditions in which most of the world lives until we are forced to take heed. We hide our eyes and cover our ears until men leading wretched lives begin to listen to the communist promise of Utopia. As in Vietnam, we often pay for our insincerity with our lives.
after World War I that rational people turned to Hitler. History seems to teach us very little.
What some of us who oppose the war propose is not a complete cessation of all resistance to the oppressive ideologies of the world. We want to see a great change of emphasis in American foreign policy; a channeling of our resources into an honest effort to improve life in the still free parts of the world. We want to issue ounces of hope-giving prevention instead of pounds of lethal cure. When so much of the
world no longer looks upon life as a burden, Marx and Lenin. Mao and Ho will have nothing to offer.
As an American, it is intolerable to me that the U.S. is responsible for a great part of the misery in the world. We can put an end to much of it by bringing our troops home from Vietnam immediately. Yes, admittedly that country would fall to the communists. But we who so long supported the tyrant Diem must take the blame for that fall and stop trying to correct our mistakes by killing. A communist Vietnam does not necessarily assure a communist Asia. The yearly $28 billion being spent on destruction could be used in Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, in Vietnam's non-communist neighbors, to ensure that life there will be tolerable enough that the people will not have to turn to communism in desperation.
That we who oppose the war speak out to say what we believe to be true does not make us hypocrites. Silence gives consent. We would be hypocrites only if we opposed the war and allowed ourselves to be considered in favor of it by our silence.
Lewis Woelk Wichita senior